Africa is the home of the safari isn’t it? Lions and tigers…(whoops, there are no tigers in Africa!), elephants and giraffes. The great savannah, open spaces and all that. Maybe its all David Attenborough‘s fault, but the popular psyche now has an image of safaris with open-top jeeps and implausibly long camera lenses in the wide open spaces of Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa.  Well no, just a quick enquiry to any search engine you care to use will show you that there are plenty of other destinations right across the world that will give you the safari experience. Just a note though, this list is not an endorsement of the destinations mentioned, the Internet is full of opportunities to compare them and get feedback to see if they’d suit you. (more…)

Increasing numbers of people are now taking a year off to go and do something completely different with their lives. Typically and traditionally this has been students taking time off before they go to university but now we are seeing older people deciding to get out of the rat race or the rat race choosing it for them when they are made redundant. (more…)

So Friday Night with Jonathan Ross has finally come to an end. He says it’s time for him to move on to pastures new. Did he jump or was he pushed? That’s a question to which we’ll probably never know the response but his own answer to the “what do I do next” question is – a gap year!

At almost 50, he won’t be the first middle-ager to take a break. Increasing numbers of people of all ages are taking time out because of a desire for a change, redundancy or just a mid-life crisis. (more…)

There’s bike races and there’s the Tour de France. The world’s greatest cycle race is approximately 3600 km long and runs across France and its neighbours. This year, the itinerary is taking riders from Rotterdam to Paris, via the Alps and Pyrenees – the scenic route. It lasts three weeks and will finish in Paris on 25th July. 22 teams and 219 riders started it on 3rd July. How many will finish? (more…)

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office today released their annual British Behaviour Abroad report saying rather wearily that we’re “still” getting into trouble abroad like some kind of exasperated parent. And what’s more, all that trouble is avoidable. Top of the list of reasons why people get into scrapes is the high numbers of drink and drug related arrests. Embassies also helped many people stranded by the problems with volcanic ash. But there are far more quite mundane reasons. Here’s a list of them. (more…)

The biggest killer in sub-Saharan Africa and in many other places in the world, way ahead of AIDS or famine, is malaria. Without wanting to be sensationalist, it kills a child in Africa every 30 seconds, Africa accounts for 90% of deaths from it as it is home to the most deadly form and it is responsible for 20% of the deaths of under 5s and 10% of all deaths in Africa. South Africa included football fans.

Cheryl Cole (or Tweedy or whatever she’s called these days) and her problems will hopefully place something of a spotlight on malaria and help reduce the incidence of this preventable disease – I know, most diseases are preventable one way or another, but this one can really be prevented cheaply. (more…)

The team at www.justanotherbaby.co.uk give us their top ten travel essentials when travelling with your baby.

Travelling with a child of any age can be stressful and taking a baby away with you for the first time is often a very daunting prospect.  There are some simple things you can do to make travelling with your baby far easier and more enjoyable.

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Backpackers old and new have always travelled across Europe and the world by train. As relatively characterless and antiseptic high-speed trains gradually take over the travelling landscape, it shouldn’t be forgotten that there is a wonderful architectural heritage in our train stations (and some pretty rubbish ones as well, but we’ll ignore them). (more…)

Holidays are to be remembered and pretty much everyone tries to capture the essence of their holiday on camera to show to family and friends, and to look back on in years to come.

Digital cameras have made it so much easier to get great shots of one off moments, but with so much choice out there it can be difficult to know what the best option is. (more…)

Apparently it’s national kissing day today (isn’t every day national something day?). It’s a thing the British are notoriously priggish about. The authorities at Warrington Bank Quay station went so far as to set up no kissing zones last year on the pretext that lingering couples were holding up the trains.

That got me thinking. Across the world, we meet and greet each other in many different ways that are governed by our social customs and habits. Train stations and airports tend to bring on uncharacteristic shows of emotion in the British so we’ll discount those situations. How do people greet each other? (more…)